


Best Foot

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [80]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Humor, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:21:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24125080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: The Bad Batch has been assigned a joint mission with Torrent.  They prepare.
Series: Soft Wars [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 66
Kudos: 537





	Best Foot

**Author's Note:**

> With a nod to that one Tumblr post with a cussing Tech, and that other post asking why writers always give the Bad Batch a couch. This is why.

“But where did we get a couch?”

“Technically it’s a loveseat,” Tech says, and that answers exactly none of Hunter’s question. “Can’t fit a full length couch. It was looking a little drab in here, could stand to be more livable. That’s all.”

It’s in no way believable, and the lie is compounded by the fact that Tech will not meet Hunter’s eyes. Hunter shifts to be in his sight line. Tech looks away.

“What the hell is this?” Crosshair snarls. “What the _hell_ is this and why is it in the karking way?” He barrels into the … former work-room, current place-where-they-keep-a-loveseat, brandishing a gnarled hardwood club. It bristles with spikes and points that gleam deliberate and lethal under the lights.

Huh. Hunter looks up. Someone’s changed the lights. Swapped them out for something less sickly-green-white. Finally changed that one that’s been out since they even got the Marauder. Neat.

“That’s mine.”

“I _karking know_ it’s yours _what’s it doing in the way_?”

Wrecker moves with the speed you wouldn’t expect from a man his size and neatly swipes the club out of Crosshair’s hands. “It wasn’t in the way. It was by the door so I wouldn’t forget.” He cradles it and glares around at them. “It’s for Lt Jesse.”

And. And okay Hunter doesn’t want to touch that one. He doesn’t want to at all, but Cody once said that part of being a leader means doing things you don’t want to do for the good of your little brothers.

“Wrecker?” he says as gently as possible. “You have something? For Lt Jesse?”

“Yes,” he snaps, sulk in full display. “I heard they play something called Murderball in Torrent and he’s so little, he needs the advantage.”

Crosshair looks like he regrets all of his life choices, but particularly the one that brought him into this room at this exact time. Hunter can relate. “I don’t know, Wrecker,” the Sergeant tries to joke. “He seemed to handle himself just fine.”

Wrecker grins. It’s terrifyingly dopey. “Yeah,” he sighs. “He threw me _through a building_.”

Yeah, they know. All of them know, even if Hunter hadn’t been there himself to witness it. It was all Wrecker could talk about for _weeks_.

“I would take that Murderball thing with an entire shaker of tablesalt,” Tech mumbles, still not meeting anyone’s eyes. Why does that loveseat look homemade? Do those cushions look like they’re made from blown-out parasail from their last op? “The same guy who told you about it says that you could beat up the Lieutenant’s squad to get his attention and I have some reservations about the effectiveness of that.”

“Wrecker do _not_ beat up Torrent regs to get anyone’s attention,” Hunter orders instinctively, well-trained in the art of cutting off the worst ideas after more than a year of practice.

“Wasn’t gonna,” he says. The glare he shoots at Tech says that’s a filthy lie.

Crosshair tsks, derisive. “Idiot.” Hunter is about to cut that off too, but Crosshair flips pointedly away from the possible brewing argument. “Are we going in in full armor?” he demands. “We should. That’s more intimidating.”

“We might scare the regs,” Tech protests. “And wouldn’t that annoy Captain Rex?”

“Would it?” It’s Crosshair’s question, but the others all turn to Hunter as well.

“Yeah, you met him right? What’s he like?” Wrecker looks excited enough to start wriggling.

They all do, in their own way. Even though Crosshair is slouching like he doesn’t care about the answer and Tech is busy fiddling as if distracted, Hunter knows he has all of their attentions. This is Captain Rex, after all. Cody’s little brother. Even if they pretend otherwise, Hunter’s squad sort of wants to make a good impression.

Hunter is a little embarrassed about the fact that he’d checked to make sure his largest knife is prepped, and he’s shined all his holsters til they gleamed.

“He seemed…”

He’d had trouble reading him. Captain Rex came across just like any other officer, at first glance. But there was something there that Hunter couldn’t quite put his finger on. He’d only been a little joking when he’d offered to have the man run with them; it was the best way to get someone’s measure. And this Captain buttoned up in his grays somehow felt like he’d be able to keep up, but Hunter couldn’t explain why.

“...normal, mostly. Hard to get a read on.”

“ _Reg_ ,” Crosshair spits and the derision only barely covers disappointment. Tech swallows quietly, and just as quietly curls a little bit more into himself. Hunter wishes he’d said something different, explained that there was _something_ not quite normal about Captain Rex, just something hard to pin down.

“But.” Wrecker looks thoughtful, and that’s always dangerous. “He trained Lt Jesse. And Echo and the other one. And they all _looked_ like regs til you made em mad. Maybe he’s the same?”

Cpl Echo had punched Crosshair right in someplace _very_ uncomfortable when he’d tried to subdue the tactician. And Cpl Fives had apparently wrapped a friendly arm around Tech and proceeded to have a very pleasant conversation, one where none of them could point to the _actual_ threat but felt it there anyway. Hunter had had the startled thought that Torrent could have stolen the Bad Batch, if they’d had half a mind to. That _does_ say something about the man who leads them, doesn’t it?

“Maybe,” he says, and it doesn’t sound doubtful. He shakes himself out of it. “It doesn’t matter. Captain Rex might not even be on the team Torrent sends-”

“ _Team_?” Tech says, shrieks, and abandons all pretense of preoccupation. “What _team_?!”

Hunter takes a step back, would have taken more if there wasn’t suddenly a loveseat there. “We… it’s a team of four?” he says with hesitation. That had been in the briefing. At minimum he could always count on Tech to skim those, he’d thought, even if he’d long given up on the other two bothering.

“ _Four_!”

“Uh.” Tech is seething, and glaring alternately at Hunter and the loveseat. “Yes? Three regs and a Jedi.”

There’s a moment of pause, and then Tech explodes with words so colorful Hunter wants to cover Wrecker’s ears. Crosshair drops his toothpick.

“ _How am I supposed to fit four extra people in here_?” Tech shouts. Hunter had planned to roll out sleeping bags on the floor; regs still get camping training and it’s only a couple of days. He’s smart enough not to say that to Tech. “And a _Jedi_! How am I supposed to fit _a Jedi_?”

“How big’s a Jedi,” Hunter hears Wrecker mutter.

“Dunno. General Shaak’s pretty big,” Crosshair mutters back.

“Fold-down bunks,” Tech decides. “It’s gonna have to be fold-down bunks, from the bulkhead. I have to build fold-down bunks and we land _in four hours_ and I haven’t polished my armor or checked my blaster calibrations…” Tech advances on the loveseat wielding a revving power tool that hums in pure malevolence. The Sergeant, wisely, retreats. “I’m throwing everyone’s crap in the hallway, get rid of it!” Tech yells after him. Hunter makes a note to ensure no one spaces anything they’re actually going to need. He tries not to hear the conversation that saunters along behind him.

“Your intranet friend. The dumb-sounding one. He says you’re supposed to bring gifts?”

“I’ll tell ya if you lemme borrow your shoulder harness with the cool skulls.”

“ _Don’t_ mess up my adjustment markings, I just got it to fit right.”

Clangs and yells ring out through the hallways of the ship, interspersed with cursing and the high-pitched whine of a saw cutting metal. Plastoid is pulled from storage and wrestled on, and thrown back as not fitting some arbitrary metric. Then a few minutes later it’s pulled out again and the process repeats. Things they’ve accumulated over the past year are thrown into piles, sorted by their suitability for gift-giving. Someone’s stuck a dangling tree-shaped air freshener in the cockpit.

There’s mass preparation going on inside the Havoc Marauder, and not a bit of it is for the actual upcoming mission. It looks like it’s once again up to _Hunter_ to make sure at least someone knows that the kark the GAR actually wants them to do when they hit their destination. They have four hours til they dock with the fleet, that’s plenty of time for Hunter to do some strategizing, maybe plan things out a little more than they usually do. Cody said Captain Rex likes plans.

He slips on noise-canceling headphones to try to stave-off the oncoming headache. They rustle against his hair. He’ll have to remember to brush that out, before he lands. Straighten up his headband.

Oh but since there’s time: he detours to check to see if his helmet could use a little shine.

**Author's Note:**

> Some things about little brothers are universal. One of those things is 'wanting to impress big brothers'.


End file.
